Selling versus Telling - Does your site convert?

Written on July 6, 2008 – 10:16 pm | by Shana Albert |

This Featured Guest Post is by Edward Beckett of Florida Search Engine Optimization.

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It would be interesting to know just how many people in Internet marketing actually had professional sales experience before marketing on the web. Having had a bit of experience in several sales sectors, I had my share of small paychecks before I decided that I really needed to learn what turned prospects into clients – pain, is a great motivator. That being said, I see many web sites that do not produce sales and I believe that one of the main reasons for these site’s lack of success is due to sending the readers the wrong message. To sell a product or service, a prospective client normally needs to have trust in the seller. If trust is not established from the message on the web site, the prospective client will simply move on to a site that captures their attention, and wins their trust.

To elaborate a bit, I’m going to describe some methods that Hollywood uses to keep their audience’s attention. I entertain quite a fascination for movies such as The Zeitgeist Movie, The Bourne Identity and The Matrix. In all three of these movies, the one thing I noticed that kept my mind in suspense was the constant state of flux between believing and disbelieving what is being implied in the movie’s story lines. In the Matrix reloaded, The Merovingian retorted when Morpheus stated, “You know why we are here.” with,” I am a trafficker of information, I know everything I can. The question is, do you know why you are here?”

With this question, the direction of the dialogue centers on the implied message that the Merovingian probably knows … a lot. This question sets the stage for the rest of the conversations that develop for that scene. But what’s important to us here is that he established credibility by the way he framed his question – he did not have to show proof of his knowledge, and no one was led to doubt what he said. He simply assumed control of the conversation by positioning himself with a question that would poise him as an authority. The point is that by asking the right questions, you may imply authority on a matter without having to “sell” someone on it. Your position may be established by the questions that you ask. Once you have established credibility … then you might gain your clients trust. Attempting to sell what you have without first gaining their trust … will usually fail.

But credibility and trust alone are not enough to keep people interested in what you have to say. Curiosity keeps people interested in what you have to say … and to keep them “listening to your questions”, (a subtle hint?) you have to find something that “they are interested in.” An old but still effective acronym in consultative sales is: WIIFM, which means, What’s In It For Me? To let the potential client know what “they are getting” from what you have to offer. Here is a news flash which may shock some egomaniac salesmen (and women). Your potential clients don’t care about you or your product, if it doesn’t satisfy a need for them. For example, let’s go back to the scene with The Merovingian and see how Hollywood keeps the audience’s curiosity and attention after intellectualizing the viewers in a conversation that parallels a logical labyrinth.

To add an element of curiosity (and excitement) to the conversation, the viewing audience was kept quite amused as The Merovingian went on to describe the climactic scene which transpires from a dessert he sent to a lady across the room … He seduced the lady through a programmatically orgasmic dessert. Watching that lady eat her dessert gave me a sudden urge to speak to my college counselor about modifying my computer science degree to include a specialty in culinary programming. Though I didn’t perform eye tracking analytics on the rest of the audience in the theater with me, I think it’s safe to say that of the males in the theater we can safely estimate that better than half of the guy’s eyes were looking at the lower half of the screen as that lady enjoyed her dessert. Though this is an extreme example, through delivering well structured questions to your readers, you may open up opportunities to uncover needs by making your potential clients curious – And if you’re really good, you might even make them hungry for what you have to offer.

Want some more info on what I can do for ya? Send me a message on my blog or pay me a visit at Florida Search Engine Optimization.

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2 Responses to “Selling versus Telling - Does your site convert?”
By Jenn Osborne on Jul 8, 2008 | Reply

Edward - thanks for the great article this is a really good point. I think far too many websites “tell” and don’t “sell”. There is a difference between a marketing perspective versus sales perspective. Unfortunately when we think sales we often think ‘used car salesman’ but the most effective sales approach is often a softer more subtle approach.
By Edward Beckett on Aug 12, 2008 | Reply

@Jenn

It’s true … When I think of a “Sales Person”, I get a visual of a middle-aged guy in a plaid pant suit with a comb-over and a sneaky, crooked smile … (Kind of like the Merovingian :))

But a “consultative sales approach” such as Question Based Sales; a technique that is used by top sales executives in companies like Compaq, Management Recruiters International, Toshiba America, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun Microsystems, is a very effective, and professional method of generating sales through asking the right questions, at the right time …

For an eye-opening look in to the world of executive sales … check out the fantastic book on QBS …

Secrets of Question Based Selling …
Thomas A. Freese

HTH …

Edward